Kalb Resigns -- And That's The Truth

October 9, 1986|By United Press International

WASHINGTON — Bernard Kalb, the administration's chief foreign policy spokesman, resigned Wednesday, two days before the Iceland summit, in protest over a U.S. ''disinformation'' campaign against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.

A reporter for several national news organizations before joining the State Department two years ago, Kalb told former colleagues in the department press corps: ''I am concerned about the impact of the disinformation program on the credibility of the United States and its faith.

''Faith in the word of America, in my opinion, is the pulse beat of our democracy,'' he said. ''Anything that results in hurt to our credibility hurts our democracy.''

His resignation came, Kalb said, after what he called a week of ''grappling'' with the issue raised by a report that the State Department had proposed, and President Reagan accepted, a plan for spreading ''disinformation'' to disorient and perhaps topple Gadhafi.

The report was published Thursday in The Washington Post and on that day, Secretary of State George Shultz defended ''disinformation'' as a form of ''psychological warfare'' against Gadhafi.

Shultz then quoted Winston Churchill, who justified wartime deceptions againt Nazi Germany by saying, ''In time of war, truth is so precious that it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.''

When the secretary made those comments, Kalb quietly sat at one side taking notes.

But, Kalb said after his resignation was announced, he had already begun to grapple with his conscience about the program Shultz was apparently defending. ''You face a choice, as an American, as a spokesman, as a journalist, whether to allow oneself to be absorbed in the ranks of silence, whether to vanish into unopposed acquiesence, or to enter a modest dissent,'' said Kalb.